74 ARTIFICIAL INSANITY. 



local external irritants (Cabanis). A factitious maternal 

 instinct is thus created, which leads the animal to assume 

 the duties of the female. 



Intense mental irritation sometimes amounting to 

 mania is producible by the injection of turpentine into the 

 anus of dogs, an operation that is occasionally the result of 

 a dangerous practical joke intentionally perpetrated by house 

 painters. The poor animal becomes furious by 'turpentin- 

 ing :' it ' rushes about in the most frantic manner, howling 

 and yelling, tearing up the ground, until its claws are worn 

 to the quick, dashing hither and thither, and attacking its 

 own body with its teeth, or flying at any animals, or persons 

 ift its track;' all this being the result, apparently, of the 

 intolerable physical pain, produced by the local chemical 

 irritant. What is most important to be borne in mind is, 

 that ' the furious form of rabies is so closely simulated, that 

 this turpentine mania has not unfrequently been mistaken 

 for that terrible disease.' l 



Pierquin suggests that the generic name of the man- 

 chineel plant c hippomane ' is based on its power of pro- 

 ducing erotomania in stallions and mares. The same author 

 ascribes melancholia to henbane, and describes the effects of 

 belladonna as similar to those of opium ; and he speaks of 

 erotomania as producible in certain birds, when fed upon 

 hemp seed, buckwheat, or fenugreek, or by cantharides. But 

 these and other statements of Pierquin's obviously require 

 re-investigation, before they can be accepted as provable and 

 proven facts. 



All the plants, or their chief products, mentioned in the 

 foregoing list, are represented as giving rise, in certain 

 animals, to temporary delirium, or more permanent mania, 

 according to the dose and the duration of subjection to the 

 poisonous influence of repeated or continuous doses. The 

 use of many of these plants was known in ancient times, 

 and is recorded by classical writers. Thus fury was de- 

 veloped in cows, by causing them to eat poppies, and in 

 cats, by eating cat mint (Pierquin). Certain mineral narcotics 



1 Eeview on Comparative Therapeutics in the 'British and Foreign 

 Medico- Chirurgical He view ' for April, 1874, pp. 405-6. 



